During the week of the five-year memorial of the Camp Fire in northern California, which is the deadliest fire in U.S. history,  the community gathered at the site with music, food, and reflection.  UTC Facilitator Bobbie Rae Jones, who lives in nearby Chico, California, partnered with local artists of Paradise, Paradise Arts, Theatre & Culture Hub or PATCH. She engaged with the community weeks before the chalk hit the concrete, asking family, students at Chico Community College, and social media friends the following questions:

So….it’s five years. Our lives are changed, reflecting on all since the incident, time has passed, and the space around us looks different, what is the feeling now? What is a symbol that is reflective of the container of our current experience? What passage is this? What image do the people, the land, and the animals need?

Many people who had been directly impacted by the disaster responded and from their words she designed the imagery. From Bobbie Rae: "The week of the memorial we gathered together just as we had prior to the disaster. Following the disaster, we gathered together, some of us as survivors and some of us as helpers. We will gather together again in the future, over and over. The landscape changes and community is the thread through it all, and beyond.”

 Quotes from survivors who participated in the project:

"I'm reminded of the oak and the acorn and the struggle to become something strong and beautiful through adversity." -Rebekah Dodson, Camp Fire Survivor

“I hope we are building a more kind and artful community.” -Eddie DeAnda, Camp Fire Survivor 

“My symbol suggestion is a bushy sprout of a tree in a tangled thicket of regrowth forest just waiting for a path maker to shape and sculpt the next 50 years of a healthy forest. I know its a complex symbol. But that’s what is going on. We have all regrown new powers but now its time to edit out the accumulated stress response and aim for the sky with a focused design for the future.” -Aindrea Romer, Camp Fire Survivor, Concow.

“After the fire, my community caught me before I spun out. Right now, its like a baby Paradise held by hands. Ya know, it takes a fire to open a pine cone to seed. Its nature regenerating itself. A simple program of biology…universal concept…its not the environment thats suffering, we are. Ultimately it is a blessing of transformation, to acknowledge, grieve, and move on.” Mike Wofchuch, Camp Fire Survivor, Paradise

More about this project here.